February 1st, 1978
Broadcasting school in Mount Joy
Ever dream of becoming
a disc jockey? How about a
TV announcer?
If you're really interested
in broadcasting work, you
need look no farther than
Mount Joy — there’s a
school here that teaches all
the fundamentals needed to
get a variety of TV, radio,
and cable TV jobs.
The Ra-O-Vision school,
located in the offices across
from Cross Roads Church
on Donegal Springs Road,
holds classes both after-
noons and evenings. All
the equipment needed to
run a radio or TV station is
there — cameras, video
monitors, turntables, mic-
rophones, lights. Students
at the school learn by
doing, putting on mock
news shows, programs, and
ads. Each student learns
many aspects of broadcast-
ing, including writing and
handling electronic gear.
The school was started in
1974 by Joe Grazan, with
the help of his family and
27 years in radio and TV.
The school is a decidedly
family affair: One of Joe’s
sons, Joe Jr., teaches
electronic gear control; his
wife, Kathy, is the recep-
tionist-secretary.
Two other of Joe
Grazan’s sons are enrolled
as students in the school.
Joe Grazan’s first job in
broadcasting was as a staff
announcer at WCPA in
Clearfield. Liking the work,
he went to broadcasting
school in’ Pittsburgh and
then worked at various
stations in that area.
Up to 1962 he was an
announcer, but in that year
he returned to this area to
work at WORK (now
WZIX) in York, and was
given tasks in sales and
management as well as
announcing.
This seems to have been
a turning point in Joe
Grazan’s life. He was soon
a full-fledged entrepreneur,
owning shares in radio
stations and starting cable
TV stations.
Joe is proud of his cable
TV station idea, which
allowed programming for a
very local area. ‘‘To be
honest, it was a tremen-
dous inovation,’’ he says.
One of his programs on
the cable TV was basically
a radio disc jockey show —
except the viewers could
see as well as hear the
jockey.
Later Joe got into more
complex programs, cover-
ing local sports and person-
alities, a leasing a channel
for full-time programming.
While continuing to
develop the cable TV
format, Joe decided that a
broadcasting school was
needed in the area, and
started on after several
years -of planning the
curriculum and making
arrangements. Ra-O-Vision
was the result, with the
first classes given in 1974
in E-town, where Joe lives.
The school moved to Mount
Joy a year ago.
Joe starts his students
doing hands-on practice
right away. ‘‘Only about
10% of our class time is
devoted to lecture,’”’ he
says.
After starting on ad
writing and broadcasting,
students move into disc
PY
When the Times arrived at Ra-0-Vision last week, a communi
cations class from
E-town College was learning how to run a TV news show. [Most evening students
at the school work at day jobs, hoping to change sometime after graduation.]
Photo above shows Joe Grazan, right, explaining the equipment to student Vicky
Munger. The back of Doug Palaskey’s head is visible at left.
In the foreground, Dottie King and Tom Galloway take care of the off-camera
voicing and music for the mock news braodcast.
jockeying, then TV. They
may work on a specialty
after they have mastered
the basics: for example,
there are S distinct cate-
gories of disc jockeys,
according to Joe. They are
Rock, Country and West-
ern, Religious, Classical,
and ‘‘Middle of the Road.”
Joe claims that he can
turn most people into
employable announcers. He
does reject applicants who
are not highly motivated or
who have a speech impedi-
Brian Aucker, center, is on-camera. Art Dent and Evelyn Johnson await their |
turns to announce the news.
ment. Reading problems
can be overcome if not
severe.
Ra-O-Vision places about
70% of its graduates in
entry-level broadcasting
jobs. This ratio will
increase in future years, he
believes, due to changes in
the industry.
Cable TV programming,
aimed at a small area, will
continue to grow. The FCC
already requires local ori-
gination for some cable
companies, and is likely to
require it of more. If the
FCC does stiffen its rules,
a great number of jobs will
be created.
Joe also mentioned a
new TV set, developed by
the Jananese, that can
bring in up to 1000 TV
stations out of the ether.
He said this new TV would
probably be on the market
in a few years, and that it
would greatly increase TV
competition, thus creating
a demand for more and
better personnel.
SUSQUEHANNA TIMES — Page 9
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